


Frost's Fall

by Ledaeus



Category: Frostpunk (Video Game), Thief (Video Game 2014), Thief (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), dead body mention, kind of an AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 03:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16297334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ledaeus/pseuds/Ledaeus
Summary: Garrett has heard that there is a storm coming.For weeks now, there has been talk in the Eternal City of the coming of a great storm, the likes of which the world has never seen before. Garrett doesn't believe these old wives' tales, but it's getting colder, and he's fast running out of food. Soon he must make the decision of whether to go with the rest of them, or chance his survival in a frozen, desolate wasteland.





	Frost's Fall

**Author's Note:**

> All temperatures listed in Celcius.
> 
> Don't ask me how this happened just... don't.

Garrett has heard that there is a storm coming.

There are whispers behind drawn curtains at night. Idle conversation between Watchmen. He can hear worry in the voices of young mothers as they gather their children at night.

It is getting colder. Snowflakes whip silently across the clocktower window at night as he watches in curiosity, observing as it drifts against the plaza walls and freezes, encasing the cobblestone under a thick white sheet. The benches and carts that the merchants use during the day to show off their goods have, over time, become abandoned; absorbed the water and rotted, cracking and collapsing under the ice. Nobody comes here any more except the Watch, scarves wrapped tight to their noses and mouths, with multiple gloves clipped tightly around their hands, shuffling through the heavy drifts. Eventually, even they stop patrolling.

For once, this has nothing to do with the Primal.

According to Basso, the City is moving north. The people, in all their panic, have finally packed up and begun to leave, taking nothing but their family and the clothes on their back. Even the most treasured of possessions are left behind for all but the richest of nobles, lords, and the man who has, since Elias Northcrest’s disappearance, assumed the role of Baron of the Eternal City. Garrett doesn’t know who this man is. Doesn’t care. He has had enough of meddling in the affairs of leaders.

Initially, Garrett assumes that this is a good thing: it will all blow over soon, just a rumour that has spiralled out of control, and for now he is content to roam the city without fear of repercussion, taking what he pleases. But the challenge has gone. What’s the point in sneaking around and stealing expensive things if they’re no longer guarded in any capacity? What’s the point in stealing rare jewellery and paintings if they no longer have value? What’s the point in pinching gold if there is no economy? If it no longer makes him the richest man in the City because he _is_ the only man?

It doesn’t take long to get old, so he begins digging for more information.

Basso has told him that he is leaving, going far north with the rest of them on one of the great convoys, and that Garrett should come too, that soon there is going to be nothing left because the Storm is coming and if Garrett doesn’t join them, it will kill him. Garrett considers this for a few days before deciding to join him, but not because he believes in the old wives’ tales.

_He believes him because there is nobody left and it makes his fingers itchy._

In those few days the temperature drops even further. Frost clings to the inside of the clocktower, freezes solid the water in the pipes and starves the birds that dare to stay behind. Garrett wakes up one morning to find three tiny, dark feathered bodies on the balcony below the clocktower. Food is slowly becoming harder to find. Garrett still returns to the houses of the lords but finds nothing in the pantries and has to make do with other scraps that he finds around the city. Some of the poorer folk appear to have stockpiles left untouched in the mad scramble to get out of the City, but some of it has been ruined by the cold. Packages have been frozen shut. The bread that he picks up and subsequently throws against a nearby wall just bounces off it with a soft clunk, melts as he tries to eat it and goes soggy as it warms up, saturated in foul water. It dissolves in his hands and he flicks the remnants off, disappointed in the failure, spitting out what was in his mouth, disgusted at the texture.

He will go hungry tonight.

It gets worse over the course of the day. He finds every piece of clothing he can lay hands on and lies in bed unable to sleep, shivering and shaking, listening to the thud-thud-thudding of the machinery slow and eventually stop above him. His stomach grumbles painfully under the covers and he tries to ignore it best he can but it’s hard. He decides it truly is time to move.

He assumes after the death of Thadeus Harlan that he is no longer such a wanted man, so he feels empowered to walk the streets freely, taking whichever warm clothes he can lay his hands on, donning layer after layer of woolen jumpers and leather jackets, finds a thick scarf and pilfers a pair of brass goggles from the jeweller’s shop in Baron’s Way South to protect his eyes from the flakes that are assaulting his eyes. Snow in the eyes is not dangerous; much more an annoyance, but it is becoming difficult for him to see, and he keeps tripping over his own feet. His cheeks feel like they’re freezing and splintering. He hitches the scarf up over his nose, tucking it into his hood, like he did with the old pinstripe one when the weather was warmer and he was out on a job. Garrett feels a warm buzz of pleasure in his heaving chest as he reminisces about the old times, when he could just steal things because he felt like it, or Basso asked him to, and not because it was part of some big plot to overthrow the Baron.

It takes him a long time to find a way out. Streets and lanes that he is usually very familiar with become alien and foreign as they are disguised in a thick white sheet, the characteristic balconies and overhangs becoming far too hazardous to traverse due to their slippiness and tendency to collapse under his footfall. 

It is too cold even to breathe without the protection of the scarf. His muscles lock and scream at him as he wades through the snow, moving two steps forward and sliding one step back, his back seizing painfully as his shivers become too much. He considers stopping, making camp, and riding out the storm before he chastises himself for being so stupid. It is not going to get better. That’s what Basso said. So he keeps going, keeps pushing himself through the wind and the snow and the cold.

He finds his first body just after he leaves the City. He nearly trips on something rigid and curses, gathering himself before trying again. His foot moves forwards this time, but brings with it a grey shin and a booted foot. Garrett knows better than to look, knows that it will make him feel uneasy and on edge, so he simply steps out of the way and continues walking into the frozen wasteland.

Some kind soul has left lanterns at periodic intervals, lighting the way to the convoy on the horizon. Garrett pushes on, ignoring how his fingers feel like they’re freezing into his palms and his stomach growls with hunger; instead he focuses on the black splodge slowly creeping its way into his view. He has only read of these vehicles in the books on engineering that take his interest while burgling the homes of the men who have too much free time and money to burn. It is a dreadnaught. And miraculously, there are still figures milling around.

Clearly this is the last convoy.

He approaches the figures slowly, hoping that they spot him and wait around for him to join them. He picks up his pace best he can and works and works and works until he feels like he’s going to pass out from exhaustion. He knows when there is maybe only a mile or so left that they have seen him, and they begin shouting and screaming over the ice field to catch his attention.

He wonders if Basso has made it.

Black smoke begins belching from the dreadnaught’s huge funnel as he closes in on the congregation, the coupling rods and wheels very clearly beginning to spin against the ice, working in unison like some kind of beautiful mechanical dance. A tall man in a huge, padded furry coat stands near the firebox, shovelling what remains of a small pile of coal into the roaring inferno and slamming the door shut with a screech and a sharp metallic _snap_ before he raises a hand to wave at Garrett as he approaches.

“We’re about to leave. There’s nobody else left. We’re the last ones.”

Garrett isn’t sure if the tone is one of grim acceptance or relief. The man hitches his hood up in the howling wind, covering the few strands of short grey hair that had been peeking out from underneath the fur, before touching Garrett on the arm and leading him to a hatch near the front of the vehicle. The machine is impressive: the stink of engine oil and coal fills Garrett’s lungs as he’s led to the hatch, the older man practically pulling him along now as it finally gains traction against the ice. There are more wheels than Garrett thought, at least eighty of them thundering in mighty unison, maybe more, all ridged with sturdy rubber tracks, ones that must have been changed recently judging by their condition.

The pair make a final dash for it as the behemoth finally takes off with a huge explosion of smoke far above their heads and they duck through the hatch, the warmth of the inner workings hitting them painfully in the face and another pair of gloved hands grab the front of Garrett’s coat and drag him in bodily, completing the transition, leaving him lying flat on his face on a meshed metal platform. He looks up after he catches his breath and finds a woman standing above him, hood down, early thirties, a shock of dark brown hair, pulled back into a low ponytail, frizzy where the snow has landed on it and dried. She offers him a hand and he climbs to his feet with some difficulty, nodding in thanks.

She’s wearing the same style of coat as the stoker who pulled him along to catch up with the dreadnaught: light grey, thick with fur, patched in places where it has been damaged and repaired. He notices some kind of device that she’s wearing over her front, a loop of leather hooked over one shoulder to hold it steady, attached at the other end to a thick belt. It looks like some kind of iron cage is attached to the supportive straps, encasing a bulb that glows dimly in the dark innards of the machine. 

He looks back and the stoker who helped him on has pulled his scarf and hood down, exposing the short grey hair underneath it, the thin cheeks and jawline graced with a one-week stubble. Maybe he is in his mid-fifties, maybe he is older. His face is gentle; he offers Garrett a weak smile before reaching down to switch off the torch strapped around his chest same as the woman and pulling off his gloves.

“Harrison,” the stoker says, offering his right hand in a firm handshake, the northern accent much clearer now Garrett isn’t running for his life, “You’re lucky you came when you did. We’re just doing cleanup now. Anyone else who stays is a dead man.”

Garrett looks at him quizzically. The rumours had been clearly much more than just rumours. “How cold…?”

Harrison pauses and leans over the side of the walkway, studying one of the many gauges attached to the inside of the dreadnaught, some of them flickering frantically between two points, some of them static in their filthy glass casings, “About minus thirty now? It’s getting much worse up in New London but at least they’re prepared for it.”

_New London?_

Garrett wonders if Basso did actually make it out in time. He hasn’t seen Erin since The Incident but he wonders too if she has escaped. The walkway underneath him judders painfully in his bones as the terrain underneath the wheels changes to something much smoother, the machinery thundering away next to them. This is clearly some kind of engine room. Everything is covered in dirt and slick oil, even Garrett himself now. He wipes off what he can but frustratingly it just smears beneath his fingers.

The woman behind him laughs, “Good luck getting that off,” she teases, “Been here months and it never seems to go away. I’m Alex,” she holds out a hand like Harrison did and he takes that too, ignoring the smile she flashes at him. He wonders what she means when she says she’s been on the dreadnaught for months and hopes it doesn’t mean he’s going to be stuck on it for too long.

They leave the engine room together, Alex leading him to a larger room somewhere in the middle of the dreadnaught where a few other people are huddled, some crying, some staring off into space, some holding onto their family. The whole room is too warm, dimly lit with oil lamps, surrounded by hot machinery. There are mattresses and blankets strewn unceremoniously in the middle of the room, some of them occupied already.

“You were the last stop. We’re heading north now,” Alex explains to Garrett as they descend a short flight of metal stairs, “There’s a storm coming and if we’re caught out in it we die. New London has one of the biggest generators in the arctic circle _and_ the best infrastructure. We have a good chance of surviving it there.”

None of this means anything to Garrett. Until the last few days, he hadn’t even realised that this was anything more than a particularly bad winter. He has never heard of New London before. “I suppose going south instead is out of the question?” The sarcasm burns in his throat. He has repressed the terrible anguish he feels at losing everything he knew best.

Alex shakes her head, “No, the south isn’t equipped for this. They’re in chaos, it’s a deathtrap We’ve had scouts exploring the frostlands and they found evidence that the sun is dimming. There’s been a volcanic eruption in the south too; it’s chaos, people are murdering each other over bread. We don’t know how long it’s going to last or how far the storm will reach. It’s safer to stick to what we know.”

Garrett doesn’t feel like arguing with her. He knows better than to butt into things he knows nothing about. Instead he looks about, studying his surroundings, focusing on the chugging machinery beneath his feet. It’s too hot, so he pulls his scarf and goggles down, but leaves the hood up, like he always has when there are people around. Alex is clearly taken aback by his Primal eye for a moment as he watches her gaze drift up the jagged scar that runs from his jaw to the dull blue contrasting with the dark brown of the other, her eyebrows furrowed, before she nods and walks off, unsmiling. He ignores the look.

Garrett makes himself as comfortable as the situation allows.

It is a terrible journey. Sickness and hunger spread in the dreadnaught as they power on through the ice, travelling further and further north, over oceans and lands that used to be rife with flora and fauna and _bustling, unapologetic life_. The oil particles in the air slowly make Garrett unwell and for a few days he is confined to his mattress, hacking his guts out and sweating through fever dreams, shivering until his back seizes again and he cries out in pain. Harrison announces that the coal is running out and they will have to walk the last leg of the journey: a two-day ordeal over dangerous crevasses and glaciers, where life-threatening avalanches are a statistical certainty. He dreads it the whole time, coughing into his sheets until his lungs hurt and he staunches nosebleeds as they occur, at least once daily, a product of the irritating pollutants.

One day Garrett decides he’s had enough of the inside and crawls to the top of the dreadnaught, where he finds Harrison sat on the edge of the hatch, silently surveying the landscape with a heavy pair of binoculars. Silence doesn’t mean much here: Garrett damn near hasn’t spoken a word to anyone in the weeks since they left the Eternal City but Harrison is usually cheerful enough to draw a word or two from those he talks to.

He points to somewhere on the horizon and Garrett follows the finger with his eyes, staring. It’s barely visible above the ice field but there is a dim orange light flashing periodically through the snow. 

A beacon.

Harrison looks up at him with a strange kind of acceptance before the dreadnaught begins to slow, carried a short distance by its own momentum before it crawls to a stop and falls cold, the last wisps of steam drifting from the funnel only to be whipped away by the howling wind. It is only now that the real challenge begins.

The journey is every bit as awful as Garrett has expected. He finds that the coat feels a lot bigger around his torso than it did when he first picked it up and he has to hitch the belt several notches tighter. He is given his own torch from the stocks the engine crew keep in the bowels of the dreadnaught, which he straps tightly around his shoulder, feeling the alien weight pulling his centre of gravity far out of whack. 

He hasn’t eaten in far too long. The food supplies have dwindled and they have been confined to eating much less than they should be, but they begin the journey anyway, knowing that there is no alternative. One man sacrifices his ration for his wife and children before collapsing three hours into the trek, dead of hypothermia. Another small group stumble onto the wrong patch of snow and it collapses without warning, throwing them all into a ravine, out of sight, their broken bodies lying somewhere in the dark ice tomb. Garrett ensures he stays towards the back of the convoy, allowing the others to pick out their safe paths.

Camp is even worse. It’s nothing more than makeshift tents comprised of whichever pieces of leather they can get their hands on and it flaps around them in the howling wind, snow piling up against the edges of the tent over the course of the night. Garrett doesn’t sleep at all, instead spending the allotted eight hours of rest staring into space, thinking of Erin.

He still doesn’t know if she’s dead or alive. Doesn’t know if she’d still hate him if she had escaped, if she’d feel betrayed or angry. His rational mind tells him that she died along with the collapse of the ship when he drew the Primal from her, but another part of him thinks she’s still alive, out there somewhere. She wouldn’t be pleased with his current predicament.

Eventually the dawn comes and another day of walking looms. Three families have died in their sleep, so the convoy leaves them behind for the scouts to retrieve later. The beacon is flying high above them now, columns of smoke extending into the air and the sound of human activity faintly audible above the flurries of snow that now drive down hard into them. Harrison drops behind the conoy to walk with Garrett and they remain in silence, waiting to arrive in New London.

It is like nothing that Garrett has ever seen before when they do finally arrive at the precipice. A huge generator stands in the middle of a deep pit, throwing thick black smoke into the air, joining smaller columns from steelworks, sawmills, bunkhouses sat in a tight ring around the generator along with the sprawling factories and workshops, coal thumpers, hunter’s hangars and more. The pit is teeming with life; the busiest place they’ve seen in months. Huge automatons traipse from building to building, stepping carefully on the paths and through the snow, avoiding the people that share the streets with them. Alex tells Garrett that once an automaton stepped on an engineer, they had to amputate his leg and the populace made some demands of the Captain, which he ignored. Garrett thinks the Captain can’t be all that bad if the place hasn’t been thrown into riots and violent disorder.

Garrett jumps when Harrison touches him on the arm, drawing his attention, and they follow the dwindling number of survivors as they travel around the rim of the pit, coming to a lift at the edge, where after a while and a lot of shouting, the workers scurrying below notice them and send up the carriage. The rails groan and shake as the mechanisms spring into action, pulleys and gears and belts straining under the weight of the cart and it takes several minutes before it reaches the top. The whole thing looks like it’s about to collapse.

Garrett hesitates for a minute before stepping into the carriage, knowing that there is no other way down. He hates lifts. It’s rickety under their feet but eventually they judder down the side of the pit and Garrett stops gripping his own arms, where they come to a depot boasting piles and piles of coal, lumber, steel, food, and glowing objects in cages that Harrison tells Garrett are called steam cores. The workers look at the refugees with distrusting eyes but stay silent, continuing to work, to haul cargo to and from the newly vacated lift.

“The Captain needs to know that this is the last convoy,” Alex tells Harrison, who nods in agreement before taking his leave and making a beeline for the very centre of the city, towards the towering, roaring generator. Alex bids her farewells and heads for the hunter’s hangars, rubbing her hands in a futile attempt to warm up as she retreats, leaving Garrett alone in the small group of refugees.

Garrett is given a tent and a place of work: one of the newly-built hothouses on the east side of the pit, near one of the steam hubs. It’s not what he’s used to and his fingers still itch underneath the gloves in protestation of having to work a normal job, in an unsatisfied need to steal. All he has ever known is thievery, and he doesn’t think he will ever quite adjust to gainful employment. He visits the infirmary briefly, is checked for communicable disease, and then sent to eat a hot meal. Work starts the next day.

He finds Basso at the public house that evening. He’s managed to hold onto his top hat but not his new messenger bird, and he’s lost a lot of weight. They have been feeding the workers soup (not unknown for Cityzens, who have already been through at least a year of nothing but thin sloop) in the absence of high quality food, despite the frenzied building of new hothouses and hunter’s hangars. Basso makes it clear that he’s not pleased with the situation; he works in a sawmill now, enduring hard, unforgiving work and harsh words from aggressive foremen, and the cold is truly bitter, bites at his fingers. In jest, he asks Garrett to steal the foreman’s prized pocketwatch in revenge for the poor treatment. Garrett responds to the bitter outpouring of criticism with sarcastic remarks, because that’s what he knows. It’s how he adapts. It’s why he’s still here.

Following news of the fall of Winterhome and the subsequent violent uprising of dissenters, the nebulous Captain announces the implementation of the neighbourhood watch, who it quickly becomes apparent are corrupt beyond all reasoning, followed by enforcement of prisons, propaganda centres and eventually the brutal executions of those who stir discontent.

Just like in the Eternal City.

Because _nothing ever changes_.

And then one day, while working in the hothouse with his fellow colleagues, Garrett sees that a new recruit has joined. One of the refugees from Camp Compass. She’s small and thin and looks lost among the hustle and bustle of the workplace. Not the cocksure, confident woman she used to be.

When she turns her head, Garrett sees the shock of short, black hair and blue eyes and the slender face. The characteristic kohl has gone from the eyes and the lips, and her fingernails are no longer black from anything but dirt. She’s changed a lot, but still he recognises her. 

And she recognises him too.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't ask me how the geography works I just don't know.  
> I pinched the word Cityzen from [StarlightLion's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightLion) great fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15912396/chapters/37092450) because I'm a terrible person.


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